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Monday, 31 January 2011

China is winning more understanding and recognition in Africa, Chinese experts said after a key African economist said Chinese investment is "really largely positive" at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.To read more click here...

Princeton University engineers have developed a new laser sensing technology that may allow soldiers to detect hidden bombs from a distance and scientists to better measure airborne environmental pollutants and greenhouse gasses.To read more click here...

A little disorder goes a long way, especially when it comes to harnessing the sun’s energy. Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) jumbled the atomic structure of the surface layer of titanium dioxide nanocrystals, creating a catalyst that is both long lasting and more efficient than all other materials in using the sun’s energy to extract hydrogen from water.To read more click here...

Friday, 28 January 2011

Value stream mapping is a lean tool that employs a flow diagram documenting in high detail every step of a process. Many lean practitioners see value stream mapping as the fundamental tool to identify waste, reduce process cycle times, and implement process improvement. Some organizations treat the value stream map as the hallmark of their lean efforts.To read more click here

According to the Forbes.com article written by Helen Wang, the chinese middle class is greater than the entire population of the United States and it is expected to reach 800 million in fifteen years. In a recent Credit Suisse report, it predicts China’s consumer market will reach $16 trillion by 2020, overtaking the United States as the world’s largest consumer market in the world.

In all of Russia's tumultuous history, the last 100 years have seen perhaps the most influential political and social upheavals, which have had a dramatic effect on the Russian psyche. Communist leaders Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin radically transformed a poor country with centuries of outdated agrarian traditions into one of the most modernized industrial nations in the world. The rapid industrialization catapulted the Soviet Union to the forefront of the global political economy, making it a superpower comparable to the United States. Yet the Soviet Union's demise was a result of its sustained path to industrialization and its underestimation of the vital importance of diversifying its base of technologies in a new information age -- one focused on computers and nanotechnology.

The Rhodia Group made its first inroads into China 30 years ago at the precise moment the country initiated the political and economic reforms necessary to embark on its transformation to a modern market economy. Occupying a privileged perch from which to observe the transition from its early stages, the specialty chemical firm has set down solid roots in the Middle Kingdom, leading CEO Jean-Pierre Clamadieu to observe: the opportunities China represents are enormous. Nevertheless, they must be constantly balanced with an increasingly rigid regulatory environment and the near daily struggle to secure adequate supplies of the resources necessary for continued growth.To read more click here...

The ever expanding palette of tools available to national authorities in their struggle to meet the energy needs of the future has grown to include fiscal incentives, quotas on production and the creation of feed-in tariffs on renewable energy sources. The financial encouragement these and other measures provide is a demonstration of the desire of policy makers to funnel more resources into expansion of solar energy production through an increase in the photovoltaic infrastructure. Across the 27 member states of the European Union, 22 are relying on some form of feed-in tariff but in deployment diversity has been the rule and each country must face hurdles specific to its own reality. Differences in capacity as well as sophistication have created wide disparities between the various countries. European Commission directives on the harmonization of renewable energy policy have taken on a greater urgency and as the measures implemented gain traction it would be wise to look back at the road already travelled and take the measure of the success or failure of decisions by focusing on the paths followed in Germany, Spain and France. By focusing largely on three countries we can draw valuable lessons on the complexion of change and the obstacles that could appear as harmonization policies gain pace.To read more click here

Thursday, 27 January 2011

Spearheaded by record investment in the petroleum and natural gas industry, Brazil’s job market continues to grow at a breakneck pace. Billion dollar investments by the government and private companies have created a positive landscape for job seekers, with no sign of abating.To read more click here...

Iberdrola, Spain’s largest energy company and worldwide leader in wind production, has announced that it will acquire 99.68 percent of Elektro, a private utility company in Brazil, from Ashmore Energy International (AEI) for US$2.4 billion in cash pending the approval of the Brazilian Electricity Regulatory Agency (ANEEL).

India has highlighted its growing defence technology capabilities by revealing its first domestically built fighter jet just hours after the US lifted sanctions on its military research establishment.To read more click here...

The Financial Times reports of two engineering companies, who have emerged from the recession with success and are leading the way for British manufacturing. It states,"Cookson and Renishaw both delighted investors on Wednesday after indicating good times would continue to roll in the coming year after both closed 2010 with strong gains in profits and sales."To read more click here...

The CNST’s Gregg Gallatin and Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory’s Patrick Naulleau have developed a numerical model that accounts for the two dominant sources of LER: the quantum statistics of exposing and developing the resist, and the roughness of the mask features themselves.

The tolerances on feature size, shape, and placement for next generation computer chips fabricated with extreme ultra-violet (EUV) lithography will range from a maximum of a few nanometers down to less than 1 nm.

To achieve these tolerances, the sidewall roughness of the features, traditionally called line edge roughness (LER), is required to be less than 2 nm. Mask LER is about 10 nm, which reduces to 2 nm on the wafer using a 5X EUV imaging system.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov has discussed and agreed on the importance of continuing production of the Russian airplane TU 204, during a meeting with air industry representatives.

Alexei Fedorov, President of the United Aircraft Corporation, had earlier warned officials of a possible freeze on producing the TU 204 due to inefficiency of production and lack of contracts. The core client Air Company Moskva canceled its orders saying the decision was due to inconsistent cost issues.To read more click here...

Siemens AG, Europe’s largest engineering company, said fiscal first-quarter profit increased as the manufacturer delivered more industrial automation equipment and wind turbines.
An economic recovery in its home market and growth abroad have increased demand for Siemens’s industrial products. The company won its largest order for onshore wind turbines to date in the quarter, and Siemens reiterated today that it’s confident to meet its full-year earnings targets.To read more click here...

Google has launched robot cars on the highways that drive safer than the best human drivers who enjoy the lowest insurance rates. it asserts the robot drivers can save lives, reduce traffic jams, and lighten the load, allowing for light weight cars that are more fuel efficient and easier on the environment. The robot cars have made road trips spanning over 140,000 miles, starting from Google's Mountain View campus to its Santa Monica office.To read more click here...

FirstEnergy and Ballard Power Systems have released a scalable fuel cell designed to take power off the grid for utility companies. FirstEnergy wants to create the world's largest mobile fuel cell roughly the size of a semi-tractor trailer and can power a community of homes. It is designed to ease energy demands during the hot months of summer when power grids are under the heavy usage.To read more click here...

New Zealand startup Rex Bionics has developed robotic legs that enable wheelchair users to stand, walk, and even climb stairs.
An individual with enough upper body strength to be able to self transfer and use a joystick by hand is likely to be able to use Rex. The robotic legs enable people to stand, move sideways, turn around, climb stairs and walk on slanted surfaces such as ramps and slopes.

A late comer to the wind turbine manufacturing industry, Siemens AG entered the wind business six years ago when it purchased the veteran Danish wind turbine manufacturer Bonus Energy. Europe's largest engineering firm, Siemens is also one of the world's primary suppliers of transmission infrastructure equipment. In 2010, the company's 3 and 3.6 MW wind turbines emerged as the top choice for offshore wind projects. Currently ranked 6th in the world in terms of total wind turbine sales, Siemens is expected to creep up to among the top three wind turbine suppliers by the end of 2012. While other turbines have reported weak sales over the past year, Siemens is showing strong sales in both onshore and offshore wind arenas.

Chinese scientists have made a breakthrough in spent fuel reprocessing technology that could potentially solve China's uranium supply problem, Chinese television reported on Monday.The technology was developed and tested at the No.404 Factory of China National Nuclear Corp in the Gobi desert in remote Gansu province, enables the re-use of irradiated fuel and is able to boost the usage rate of uranium materials at nuclear plants by 60 folds.To read more click here...

The United States on Thursday launched Delta IV Heavy, the largest rocket ever, carrying a spy satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The three-engine rocket, carrying the 1-billion-dollar top- secret spy satellite NROL-49, blasted off at 1:10 p.m. (21:10 GMT) from the base, 130 miles (209 km) northwest of downtown Los Angeles.To read more click here...

NTT Data Corp., the network-services unit of Japan’s largest phone company, may spend as much as 300 billion yen ($3.7 billion) on acquisitions, focusing on targets with Brazilian operations, President Toru Yamashita said.
NTT Data is in talks with several targets that may result in purchases within a year, Yamashita said in an interview in Tokyo however, he declined to specify any names.
Helped by a stronger yen, it aims to capitalize on the expansion by Japanese manufacturers including Toyota Motor Corp. and Komatsu Ltd. in Latin America.To read more click here...

A corporation that makes wind-machine components estimates that more than three times as much wind power capacity was installed in China last year than in the United States and that China now constitutes the world’s largest wind energy market.

The report from the American Superconductor Corporation, which makes wind machine components and licenses other companies to produce such components, said that China might have the largest installed base of wind turbines, about 40,000 megawatts.

India has developed an intensive focus on dealing with its energy security challenge, which has emerged as a constraint on the Asian giant’s industrial competitiveness.The Ministry of External Affairs joint secretary and spokesperson Vishnu Prakash said the country is focused on increasing its energy capacity, as well as other infrastructure, such as roads, ports, airports and telecommunications, the lack of which was limiting the economy’s growth and development aspirations.To read more click here...

In the 1980s, the United States faced an unnerving challenge from a rising economic powerhouse and export dynamo. It was an impressive challenger, to be sure, but one that often bent rules of global competition unfairly to its advantage by handing out financial subsidies to domestic companies, discriminating against foreign suppliers in government contracts, pilfering Western technology and keeping its currency cheap. Three decades later, Americans are hearing an echo of the past. Yet this time, the object of admiration and angst is not Japan Inc., but China Inc.To read more click here...

The rapid expansion of its high-speed railways has got China plenty of attention. Yet ambitions do not stop at the border. On its southern flank China is renewing a push to lay tracks to mainland South-East Asia. The region’s leaders have dreamed since the 1990s of seamless rail travel between Singapore and Kunming, capital of the south-western Chinese province of Yunnan. South-East Asia’s existing network of railways is creaking, patchy and underfunded. Most goods move about the region by lorry and ship. But that creates choke points while running up fuel bills. An integrated rail system could be just the ticket.

France and energy companies plan to build capsule shaped nuclear reactors moored underwater on the sea floor several miles off the coast of France. The first reactor in the project, called FlexBlue, is scheduled to go online by 2016.

With the cost of gasoline(petro) and energy increasing, we would all welcome an affordable approach to saving money. The video below provides an innovative method for maximizing performance for any car.

This done by introducing hydrogen as a catalyst into the engine combustion process. This method improves engine efficiency and horsepower while reducing fuel consumption and carbon emissions. The catalyst (hydrogen) provides an alternative reaction pathway to the reaction product. The rate of the reaction is increased as this alternative route has a lower activation energy than the reaction route not mediated by the catalyst. The activation energy defines the minimum energy required to start a chemical reaction.

The fuel has enough oxygen to allow the fuel to react completely and this allows complete combustion to be achieved.

Saturday, 22 January 2011

European researchers are working on the EU SARTRE project that will allow cars to drive themselves in a line on the highways by following a lead vehicle. Its purpose is to develop, test and validate this technology. This exciting project has now been running for a year. The video below summarizes the first year's work of this multi-partner research initiative.

Even though this project could improve driver safety and fuel efficiency while reducing environmental damage. It would be more advantageous to invest in a different from technology because it has a high risk factor and it has a slim possibility of receiving government approval. In addition, it would be very difficult to convince people to trust their lives with new technology at high speed within close proximity.